Chevy S10 - $2017 Challenge and beyond

Lunchtime pondering and playing around with paint a bit.  I wanted to get a rough idea of what the driving lights would look like in various positions.  May experiment a bit more, but here's four ideas I had:

On bumper, wide -  Works for not blocking airflow to the radiator, but not sure I like it:

On bumper, centered - I like it, but biggest air blocker:

Similar, mounted with the license plate holes:

And finally, for now, mounted close together, in front of the bumper.  I could probably still use the license plate holes to build a bracket:

Any opinions?  Other locations they may look better?

Cut holes and Bumper Mount behind Bumper in between license plate and turn signals

Dusterbd13-michael said:

Cut holes and Bumper Mount behind Bumper in between license plate and turn signals

That does sound cool, but I'm not sure I'm into hacking up a good chrome bumper up here where they are rare.  I may have to reconsider if I ever switch to a fiberglass bumper.  
Oh yeah, Ohio no longer requires a front plate, either, so thankfully, I won't have one.

In reply to BionicTigerShark (Forum Supporter) :

Wow, that's cheap for an airdam - I almost snagged a used one off an up-optioned blazer at a junkyard a little ways back, and it probably would not have been much cheaper.

It does have me wondering about mounting below the bumper, although they are driving lights, not fog lights, so I'm not sure how low they can be mounted, and still be useful.  Admittedly, I'm going for halogen Hella 500s, so it's not like functionality is the only thing I am looking for.

roof bar with 6 round lights is the only answer

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

roof bar with 6 round lights is the only answer

How about 2 round, 2 rectangle?

In reply to eastsideTim :

any variant which includes total of 6 auxiliary lights and at least some of them on a roof bar is an acceptable path

also, your presentation skills are top notch.  how could i say no when the example is a square body jumping a cadillac?

So, this is a little creepy.  To get the above photo I did a google image search for "Fall Guy truck" on my home PC.  This evening, turned on the FireTV, and one of the recommended shows was Fall Guy.

In reply to eastsideTim :

It's almost got to be one of those roll bars.

In reply to wae :

There was an S10 Baja for sale near here sometime last year.  Nowhere near as nice shape as that, but I was still kind of tempted.

wae said:

In reply to eastsideTim :

It's almost got to be one of those roll bars.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

I had to do a reverse image search to see if that was what I thought it was.  Someone should take one of those trucks and get a translation of "Fujiwara Bait and Tackle" on the side.

wae brought the mounted 16" wheels/tires by earlier this week.  One ended up having a leak at the bead.  Today, I sealed it up, and got the wheels back on the truck.  Debating between 1" and 1.25" spacers for the back wheels.  There's a slim chance 1" spacers would require me to grind down the lug studs a tiny bit.  If I can find them, I may split the difference and go with 1.125".

Biggest thing I want to take care of before driving it again is to get the parking brake working.

Also realized today, the 4x4 S10 wheel flares probably were in the storage locker.  Those are going to be hard to find replacements for.

Time to bubba this thing up.  Ordered a decent quality set of 1" spacers, and a cheap set of 1/8" spacers in case I need a little extra gap to clear the factory lug studs.  Also ordered an Ultragauge, so I won't need to worry about mucking around with wiring up a coolant gauge or fix the speedometer wiring for now.

I think I'll rig the blower motor to run at full speed on a switch instead of tearing the heater controls out of the dash again.  At least the controls will still allow me to direct the air.  
 

First very local cruise in is a little under 2 weeks away, I'd like to drive the S10 to it.

More very small updates.  Weather was crappy yesterday, and space is tight right now, so I couldn't just open the garage door and move things outside.  Decided to test out the new wheel spacers.  I went with both of them, as there was just enough interference I would have needed to grind off a little bit of the original lug studs, or the manufacturer's marks off the wheels.  Would rather not do either.

Before:

After:

I'd kind of like it to be a smidge more inboard than that, so I may attack the lug studs with a grinder at some point, but for now, it'll do.  I need to do the other side, but I also need to pull the wheel on this side, and properly tighten the spacer with a torque wrench.  I just ugga-dugga'd it on, and didn't want to overdo it, so it may need a bit more.  I'd need someone in the cab of the truck to hold the brakes to keep the wheel from turning while I tighten it, too.

Weather is nicer today, but I have some work to do, and still need to deal with taxes, so I may not be able to accomplish anything else.  If possible, I'd like to at least get back under it and figure out exactly what I need to do to get the parking brake working.

In reply to eastsideTim :

New flushness looks way better. I threw up a little when you said "grind down the lug studs", then I realized (and hope) you're probably talking about the length that would poke past surface of adapter and interfere with inboard surface of wheel.

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to eastsideTim :

New flushness looks way better. I threw up a little when you said "grind down the lug studs", then I realized (and hope) you're probably talking about the length that would poke past surface of adapter and interfere with inboard surface of wheel.

Yup, the studs are just shy of 1/8" longer than the 1" spacer, and the markings on the wheels around 3/32" from the mounting surface of the wheel, so there's an approximately 1/32" interference.  I figure 1/16" removed would give me enough margin for everything to be nice and flat.  Not going to mess with it until I've got more other stuff done first.

Once the truck is out of the garage, I'll try to take a picture of an entire side of it.  I think the rear track is wider than the front, but they look the same since the front fender very subtly curves inward.

Took some time today to work on the truck.  Biggest priority is getting the parking brake working, since my driveway is on a hill.  I had to overcome a 4" gap between the front and rear cables.  Originally, I was going to use a 2nd gen blazer cable in the front, along with the 2nd gen cables in the rear, and just crimp an appropriate length intermediate cable.  That ended up not working due to some firewall differences between 1st and 2nd gen S10s, so I was stuck with the first gen cable up front:

I had an idea and ordered some 8mm coupler nuts.  One of those, combined with an 8mm bolt in my stash, and a parking brake cable connector will have to do the trick.

After a little cutting and grinding:

Once welded together, I'll thread the coupler nut onto the front cable as far as possible that will still allow me to pull the rear cable into the cable connector, and hope that will be tight enough to engage the brake shoes.  If I had wanted to get really fancy (or if this idea fails), I  could order a coupler nut with left and right hand threads, and a left hand threaded bolt, and the nut could be the adjuster.

I was also working on a bracket to mount the driving lights today, since I had the angle and bench grinders out.  I think I have all the parts cut and drilled for it, too.  The last thing I did before I started getting too tired and hungry (and the bugs started getting too thick), was to abrasive wheel the coatings off anything that was going to get welded. 

If weather and time permit, I'll open up the garage tomorrow, clean parts up, and fire up the welder. 

Today was weld and paint day.  Later this week after the paint has cured better, I'll need to get to installing.

For the light bracket, I took some angle iron I had laying around, and drilled it on 7" spaced holes on one side, and 8" spaced holes on the other.  Cut it down to length, added a couple of small gussets, even through they are overkill.  Welded some 3/8" bolts on one side, and then threaded and welded some nuts on as spacers, to make sure the bracket and lights clear the bumper trim.  Before painting it, I ran all the corners over the grinder, and filed any other rough edges down.

It'll mount to the holes in the bumper from the license plate bracket.

Rough day today, so I really didn't feel like crawling around under the truck.  Painted a bit of hardware at lunch today, then tonight installed the light bracket.

I had some 3/8" nylock nuts laying around, so they and some washers are holding it in behind the bumper.

I wanted to see what it would look like when finished, so tossed the lights on for now.  I'll need to remove them to properly wire them and use all the hardware that came in the kit.  Everything is attached loosely right now.

Farther back view:

Well, this sucks.  Installed the adapter between the front and rear cables, pressed the parking brake, and heard a sproing.  It appears the front cable was bound up somewhere.  There's more slack than I can adjust out by at least an inch.  Guess I need to build a shorter adapter or come up with a new plan.

Maybe I should just install a hydraulic handbrake.

Last night, I quickly made and painted a shorter version of my adapter.  Installed it this morning.  Still doesn't work.  I was justified in being concerned I can't adjust it once installed.  Pretty much can't slip the rear cable into it with enough tension in the inactivated position.  The cable does have some tension in it when the parking brake pedal is depressed, but not enough to actually activate the parking brakes.

Back to the drawing board for now.  I'll ponder it while working on other stuff.

Yanked the grill off, wired up the driving lights, and tested them with no problem.  It was nice to have an easy success.  I'll have to see about aiming them once I get the truck out for a drive. 

Next thing I did was start digging through the heater wiring.  With the ignition off, every signal wire is grounded.  With it on, none of the wires are grounded, but none of them have voltage, either, no matter what the fan setting is.  I checked, and the underdash fuse is good.  I really don't want to pull the dash controls, as it is nearly impossible to reconnect everything, there is pretty much no slack in the wires or cables.  The auxiliary switch I was thinking of using is not going to be as easy as originally planned - the wire for it terminates inside the cab.  Worst case, I tear off the heat shielding for the engine bay bulkhead wiring for the umpteenth time, and hook up the wire through it, just so I can at least have full speed on the fan.  I'll do some more investigating before that, though.  I do have a factory wiring manual, but it has not been helpful yet - it only seems to have the diagram for the non-AC system, where my wiring harness is for AC, and my controls are non-AC.  From a fuzzy diagram I have a printout of, it seems like they should work, at least in a few positions.

Thought maybe I'd start in on the new oil pressure gauge, too, but didn't make it.  I did find out the likely cause of death for the old one, though. Turns out, I never slid the protective cover for the alternator power wire back in position, and the post rubbed through the convoluted tubing and the oil sender signal wire.  Doesn't appear to have burned the wire or anything, but I am guessing a steady 12V through the signal wire did the gauge in.  I think I'll wrap the wire in electrical tape, confirm continuity, and swap out to the new gauge and sender.

Figured out another victim of the storage fire - my bin of spare S10/Firebird wiring harness.  I used it whenever I needed extra wiring of a specific color.  Fortunately, I still have some other wiring laying around, but that was really convenient when I needed a whole bunch of different colors, or if I wanted to match an existing wire color.

I need to get eastsideWife's help sometime this week to hold down the brake pedal while I torque the wheel spacers on.

A little pondering on the parking brake.  McMaster sells a left/right threaded adapter in M8, but it is about $19.  If I could be sure I could make it work, I'd order that and a left handed bolt.  I wish I could find a way to determine how much the rear cables need to be pulled in order to work.  The parking brake itself seems to move the cable by about an inch.  The theoretical max tightening I can't do with the adapter is 50 mm, so about 2 inches, but that doesn't include getting a few threads started, so probably better to say about 1.5".  Then, there is the fact that the cable end needs to be made to slip into the adapter, and that as about another half an inch, although maybe I could use some pliers to pull it into position if I can get a good enough grip on it.